Greetings from Belize!

Location: Belize City - Belize

Day 1
by Wayne & Karen Brown

Greetings from warm and sunny, Belize! We are here to start our month long study of the reefs and rainforests of the Yucatan Peninsula of Central America in Belize. We will be studying the health of the coral reefs and marine life diversity, looking at the diversity of rainforest animal and plant life and learning about the history and culture of Mayans and the country of Belize.

We arrived after a long flight from our home in Irvine, California. Our plane stopped in Dallas, Texas, where we changed planes and flew on to Belize City, Belize. We left Irvine at 6:50 AM and arrived in Belize at 3:45 PM. Belize is two hours ahead of California, in the Central Time Zone. (Subtract the two hours from our travel time and find out how long our trip to Belize was.)

At the Belize City Airport we were met by Juan. Juan is one of the crew from our expedition diving boat, the Belize Aggressor III. Juan took us and all our equipment by van to the dock where the Belize Aggressor III was is docked. We will be living on this boat for a week as we dive along the world's second largest barrier reef along the coast of Belize.

After we loaded all of our equipment on the boat. We ran into town to see it before the sun went down. We walked around a small park near the dock. The park only had a couple palm trees and was mostly covered with grass. Only a few people were in the park. The people we saw are mostly black and brown-skinned.
At one end of the park we saw some boys playing soccer. We stopped and watched the them play for a while. We don't think it was a real game, they were just having fun kicking the soccer ball around.

Some of the houses around the park were probably over 100 years old! They are two or three stories tall and made of wood. Stairs lead up to the big raised porches in the front that are as long as the house! The houses are painted white and have red metal roofs and green window shutters. After our visit to the park we walked back to the ship to watch the sunset.

After dinner we met our captain, Ken Elkins. Captain Ken is a retired sea captain from Sacramento, California. He is very knowledgeable about the sea and the reefs along Belize. That is important because most of the reefs are in shallow water. If a captain does not know where the reefs are he could run into the reefs and sink his ship.

Its been a long day of traveling and we are tired so we go to bed to dream about all the exciting things we will see here this week.

Welcome to our expedition to all our student adventurers.
Wayne & Karen Brown

  
TODAY'S DATA

Belize City, Belize

Position: 17º 30' N / 88º 11' W
Air Temp: 82ºF
Weather: light breeze, sunny with scattered clouds.
Water Temp: 81ºF

The Belize Aggressor III - a 120 foot long scuba diving expedition ship.

We found this welcome sign at the entrance to the park near the boat. Sitting on the sign are two toucans and a jaguar (they are not real). Notice the Belize house with the red roof.

This is typical Belize house. It is made of wood. It is raised up off the ground to keep it cool. There is a porch around it for shade.

We met some kids having fun playing soccer in the park.

Captain Ken is the captain of the Belize Aggressor III. He will take us to the best reefs for scuba diving.

  
 

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